Effects of metacognitive strategy instruction on student conceptual change in physics: A meta-analysis

Abstract

A meta-analytical gap is apparent towards the long-term effects of metacognitive strategy instruction. As such, the current meta-analysis focuses on studies that looked at both the posttest and long-term effects after the intervention period had been concluded. Specifically, it focused on strategy instructions with metacognitive components such as metacognitive knowledge and skills that were guided through metacognitive prompts or scaffolds. The results show that there was a significant overall effect of metacognitive strategy instruction interventions on the conceptual change of students in physics in comparison to students under the conventional teaching approach. Possible moderators such as publication types, facets of metacognition, levels of education, and epistemic beliefs were explored to test their moderating effects on the variation between the results of the 20 identified studies.